


Hostage

by howsharry



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: AU, Agent!Harry, Alternative First Meeting, M/M, Pre-Movie, Robbery, robber!Eggsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:23:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5626543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howsharry/pseuds/howsharry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What a fucking lovely day, Harry Hart thought while internally screaming at the check in his left hand. The bank assistant in front of him wore a very similar expression.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hostage

A car braked hard in front of the glass walls of the buildings and seconds later three young men, all terribly poor masked, charged into the building.

What a fucking lovely day, Harry Hart thought, while internally screaming at the check in his left hand. The bank assistant in front of him wore a very similar expression.

“Ev’rybody flat on the ground!”, one of the three, a young black man, shouted and waved his gun as he pushed through the confused crowd. His clown mask tended to slip down from his forehead to his nose, pretty much failing all its purpose and revealing his bright eyes and prominent eyebrows.

Harry, still standing in the queue in front of the counter, turned around to his left about 90 degrees to have a better look at the gunmen. Two young lads, both dressed in more or less shabby clothes, stood out from the approximately 13 civilians that lowered themselves to the ground everywhere in the room right now.

“This is a heist!”, the second and slimmer guy shouted with obvious adrenaline overflow. He wore a similar mask and the same type of weapon. Plastic, but not that bad of an imitation, Harry knew immediately. He pronounced 'heist' wrong though, probably first heard the word as the title of the Macklemore album.

Also, they both grinned far too much to make it out alive from this debacle, Harry thought. Experience showed that the overly optimistic criminals rarely turned out to be the long-living. He adjusted his glasses and simultaneously activated their recording function while considering his choices to make this go down smoothly. The Kingsman agent was just about to reach for his gun when he felt the cold barrel of another ditching his neck. 

“I don’t kna what you’re about, but ya better lie down now, old man”, a third boy said and pressed the metal harder into the fabric of Harry’s suit. 

Fucking stupid, Harry thought. If this, too, was a fake weapon, he - in the kid's place - never would have let anyone near it and instead eliminate every chance of being disarmed at first. Shoot the skillful looking guys like him, kill the police men and security clerks. Kill everyone who looked the least bit like he could handle or carry a gun. Again: stupid kids. Unfortunately, he couldn’t feel if the weapon pointed at his neck was real or not, but he definitely didn’t want to end up with his brains blown all over the marble floor because he made a wrong move.

In the meanwhile, the skinny guy just had an afflatus and almost dropped his weapon in shock. 

“Fuck, Jamal! Don’t let them push the buttons!”

“What fucking buttons, Ryan?”, the black kid asked.

“The buttons behind the fucking counter! You stupid? We watched Panic Button together, man.”

“Don’t fucking call him by his name, you asshat”, the man behind Harry shouted back with an almost boyishly high voice. Still, the impulses coming from the handgun effectively send shivers down Harry’s spine. 

Harry sincerely hoped none of the bank employees would push that button. As clumsy as those kids did their job, the police would arrive far to early and Harry and the other civilians would be held in a hostage situation. His schedule really didn’t allow this today.

From the corner of his eye he could see a young assistant reaching beneath the counter, unnoticed by the three robbers. Harry sighed heavily.

“And you”, the man behind him shouted at the back of Harry’s head, “I fucking said you should fucking lie down.” 

“What for? The police will be here in 7 minutes. It doesn’t seem worth the effort to me”, Harry replied coldly and turned around to his attacker slowly. 

Oh boy. Even under the black tights over his head he could see how young the kid was. 18 from his scared looks, but probably somewhat around 20. Dirty-blonde hair, bright green eyes, distinctive chin and his nose was freshly healed from a rupture. There was a certain amount of defiance in his posture, the way he awkwardly tried to keep his shoulders from hanging and lifted his chin defiantly, but all in all he just looked tired. Like he just worked himself through a 10-hour-shift at McDonald’s. 

Harry’s second look went for the gun. Poor child, just as much plastic as the other two were. Harry still didn’t reach for his. He didn’t want to fight three unarmed teenagers in a public place with three handful of witnesses plus CCTV and Merlin watching through the glasses. And yes, he pitied the young man, too. 

“Fuck, Eggsy, what do we do?”, the slim guy shouted in distress. 

Harry could see how the boy in front of him rolled his eyes internally at the indiscretion of his fellows and felt how he gained control over this situation. They obviously had no idea what they were doing, so Harry was superior in every important aspect.

The blonde, named Eggsy apparently - the name sounded familiar, didn’t it?, dropped the black sports bag he was carrying on his shoulder and kicked it over to Jamal. 

“Let them fill it at the counter, for god’s sake. All the cash they have. I gotta keep an eye on this one.” He ran a hand over his face, another stupid thing to do while threatening someone with a a fake gun. 

Harry took a good look on his watch and made no move to lie down somewhere or raise his hands in defense. He was armed, after all, why start acting innocent?  
“6 minutes”, he counted and the boy fucking flinched. 

“Faster”, Eggsy shouted in reaction but not before shooting the older man an angry glare that still couldn’t alter his very stressed and pale expression. “And then we move.”

The cashier raised himself from the floor and started to carefully put packs of notes into the black bag while the two goons followed his movements with beautifully dumbfounded expressions. Neither of them had seen this much money before, Harry guessed. 

He took another look around the room, where victims where lying on the ground but even they seemed to sense the lack of professionalism and the haste of the young man. Harry had - on other, more violent occasions, mostly Kingsman-related - seen people urinating at themselves out of fear, panic attacks, unconsciousness and the most deadly: rage and disobedience. But these - predominantly well-off Londoners like himself - were doing okay.

“5 minutes”, Harry remarked sharply. 

Eggsy’s attention was taken away from him by the faint noise of police cars in the distance, whereupon Jamal and Ryan almost stained their shorts. 

“Fuck, Eggsy, come on!”

“They can’t catch us or we’re dead!”, Ryan panicked and dropped the bag where it was in favor of running faster. Both sprinted to the glass door and Harry eyes flew to Eggsy, who was obviously torn between following his friends outside, where the police would get them in an instant, and staying with the bag and the money. 

Harry observed as Eggsy’s hand grabbed his t-shirt instead. How his right trembled on the gun and his left on the small pendant hanging from a fine chain under his collar. Eggsy couldn’t decide, struggled with himself and pulled at his neck as if a tie would threaten to shorten his breath, but there was just a small piece of metal and a pink pendant...

And then Harry’s eyes flew open in realization. Before the young man could run, he grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him towards himself, blocking Eggsy’s access to the fake gun and securing his arms. 

“This is a fucking stupid idea”, he growled in the younger man’s ear. Eggsy tried to wiggle out of his grip but Harry, having him on his chest, was in the better position. “They are going to shoot you as soon as you put a foot outside.” A blatant lie, of course, but he needed a moment to make a better excuse for keeping the boy right here.

Eggsy growled angrily before letting his resistance subside with a silent sigh. 

Harry tried to remember the small boy to whom he had handed the pendant all those years ago, his big, innocent eyes. How he had just nodded at the medal, unable to process the death of his father. And, for a wonder, Eggsy still clung on it.

Then Eggsy kicked him in the shinbone and it fucking hurt. Harry could see stars as the edges of his vision darkened and he sagged to the ground so he wouldn’t fall on something when loosing consciousness. Good shot, he thought.

The police drove up in front of the building and heavily armored gunmen positioned themselves in front of the glass doors and windows. Harry was dragged by the front of his suit and howled quietly in pain, but he was silent as soon as he felt the cold barrel of the gun against his temple again. 

They were fucking fast, S019 normally needed a lot more time to get into their boots. How fortunately, he thought bitterly while fighting against the darkness at the edges of his vision.

“If you don’t back off, I’ll shoot him”, Eggsy shouted and Harry supposed nothing of that was audible outside the building.

“Waggle around with your gun again, they’ll get the message”, he snapped and pushed Eggsy’s hand from his neck where it was gripping harshly into the flesh. “Unlike you, they are professionals.” 

After a few minutes of nervously tipping his feet, the boy helped him to stand up without any gentleness to spare and pushed him back to the counter. 

Harry’s head was still comfortably numb from the shock of pain, but he was very well aware of the younger man’s trouble. Eggsy pulled the tights from his head and slammed them on the counter in frustration

A flicker on the right lens of his glasses showed Harry that he had an incoming call on the comm. 

“I’m not sure you noticed: you got to think of a back-up plan now, but I’ll leave you alone with that”, Harry murmured in Eggsy’s general direction and turned around to get some privacy from this mess of a robbery.

“Hey hey, stay right were you are”, Eggsy gestured him back with his gun. Harry looked at him questioningly and considered if it was worth the chicanery of him, a Kingsman agent, to be pushed around by a boy with a plastic pistol. 

It’s Lee’s son, he thought and told himself to be patient with the boy who didn’t seemed too happy with the situation either. So instead of putting him to the ground he raised his hand to adjust his glasses while simultaneously answering Merlin’s call. Letting his handler talk into his ear without being able to reply with the usual sharp sarcasm wasn’t one of his favourite activities - but so was getting involved in a bank robbery. Fuck it.

“Are you safe, Galahad?”

Took you long enough, Harry thought, and let his gaze go on time around the room so Merlin could see the bank automates and the counters, also the 'victims' and, of course, Eggsy. 

“I’m going to send Bors to get you out of there”, Merlin, understanding his inability to speak right now, said immediately but Harry shook his head slightly enough for the handler to notice. “You can handle it yourself?”

Harry looked intensely at Lee Unwin’s son so Merlin hopefully would get the message. This was not just a robbery, he thought, this was also a phenomenal coincidence. 

Merlin sighed and Harry heard tapping noises in the background. “I’m sure you can handle the situation yourself, is there anything I can do?”, Merlin finally said.

Immediately, Harry pointed his face at the security cameras in almost every corner of the room. 

“Understood”, his handler said, followed by even faster tapping, “CCTV is off.”

This would be helpful, even if Harry wasn’t exactly sure what he was about to do. Lee’s boy, part of the family he had passively and partly destroyed with his own inattentiveness, was obviously not doing great. Actually, it looked like Lee's son was just at the brink of a panic attack. 

“It’s an Unwin. Lee's kid”, Merlin gasped then, after checking the young man’s case files via face-recognition, and Harry let go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He nodded slightly and turned again to the police cars outside. 

“The missing similarity surprised me, to be honest. Suppose he’s coming after his mum”, Merlin grunted then, his interest obviously fading while he read through the kid’s criminal record. He finally said goodbye with a promise of checking the police radio. 

“Don’t let him get revenge, even if he’s only armed with an imitation”, he told Harry what could have been a light joke, but wasn’t. “HQ, out.”

After that, Harry considered his position. He possibly was the only armed and trained man in this room. So it was his responsibly to get all the witnesses out safe and also to protect the robber, who would be dead as a fly - symbolically speaking - as soon as the victims turned on him and ran away. 

Just in the moment, a young woman raised from her crouched position, carefully looking for Eggsy, but the boy jumped at her immediately and pressed her down with his little toy gun.

“Don’t you dare to anything stupid”, he murmured loud enough for everyone to hear. But Harry could clearly see that this kind of violence and the power imbalance surely was out of Eggsy’s comfort zone.

He would have to so support him in keeping his power, somehow, in order to keep him safe, which was was he instinctively wanted. 

“You’ll have to make a plan now”, Harry called from the other side of the hall in the same cold restrained voice as before. “I’m sure as a well-prepared attacker you’re familiar with the procedure of bank-robbery.” The sarcasm wasn’t fading as well.

Eggsy looked up, staring directly at Harry.

“They call, that’s what they always do first”, Harry said and grabbed one of the telephones from behind the counter to offer it to the young man. “They will ask you to let your all hostages go and you will, one by one, to play out time.”

“Shut the fuck up”, Eggsy said in a tired voice and pointed his gun again at Harry. 

“Language”, Harry scolded and went forwards to the young man and held out his hand until Eggsy took the phone from it. From close proximity now, Eggsy really didn’t look much like his father. Lee Unwin had been proud, secure in what he was doing and devoted to his principles. In contrast, Eggsy Unwin was a mess of despair, fear and exhaustion. But Harry had to admit to himself that he had a weak spot for lost creatures like this. 

“You should come with me to the counter now, so we can discuss your future plans in private”, Harry told him quietly.

“Why would I do that?”, Eggsy snorted in amusement. For the same reason the kid let him stand around here all the while everyone else was kissing the earth, Harry thought.

“Because I clearly know more than you”, he answered simply. Eggsy bought it immediately, because well, probably every person in this room could do a better robbery than him. 

“And why would you help me?”

“Firstly, because I like work to be well-done and that lies most often in my own hands. Secondly, because this...”, he reached into his suit for his business card with the Kingsman logo printed on it, “...might look familiar to you.”

Eggsy stared at the card, back to Harry’s face and back to the card. “Fuck me”, he whispered. 

Harry, secure enough in his newly earned trust, leaned into Eggsy’s personal space and whispered into his ear. “And thirdly, I’m the only that knows you got your gun from ToyRUs. So you better take my advise, Eggsy Unwin.”

Yeah, maybe it was a bit much of a show but the dramatic background of their encounter really did promote some sort of drama, didn’t it? Eggsy’s white face definitely proved him right, and the way he lowered his gun hand did too. 

Eggsy didn’t follow him to the counter directly but instead browsed the people lying on the ground hastily. He picked up an elderly pair and a pregnant woman and two teenagers, the rest must have looked fit enough to him to survive some hours of being held hostage.

“Run”, he huffed at them and pointed his gun to the door.

“Come away from the windows, or they’ll shoot you”, Harry warned, jokingly, and waited for the young man to join him.

Eggsy watched as his hostages left the building and were embraced by groups of police men and women, before he followed Harry to the counter and they both jumped over the desk to get a bit of privacy. Eggsy still had an eye on the hostages left and clicked his gun in irregular intervals to let them know he was still watching them. He also kept a safe distance from Harry, which was considerably less dumb than everything before.

“Who the fuck are you?”, Eggsy asked and turned to Harry again. The older man knew what Eggsy saw in him. A posh, well-off bloke with all the luck in the world, no one to come near. No one he would ever speak to, no one he would get help from.

“My name is Harry Hart”, Harry replied and pointed his chin at Eggsy’s breast. “And I’m the one that gave you that medal.”

Realization is a bitch when someone’s watching you having it. Harry, who was feeling all too relaxed in this situation, had to suppress a chuckle at the sight of Eggsy’s mouth hanging open. Finally, he got some words halfway out.

”You knew my...-”, the telephone rang and Eggsy almost fucking dropped it. Harry was fast enough a wrapped his fingers around Eggsy’s, giving him an affirmative look and he didn’t know where that came from.

“Remember what I just said? They will make you offers to let go of the hostages and you should take everything you can get.”

Eggsy looked at him frowningly and then answered the call.

“Yes?”, he simply said with a slight hiss and Harry would have liked to bury his face in his hands. Eggsy nodded, nodded again and then wrinkled his forehead. 

“One”, he said sternly and ended the call. 

Harry looked at him suspiciously. 

“They want all hostages free immediately, and they ask what I want”, Eggsy whispered. 

“Naturally,you will only give them one at a time until they get impatient. You want them to offer you something good, give you security. That’s what you want. Tell them next time.”

Eggsy still looked at him in suspicion. Their encounter had made all things messier than they were at the beginning. Eggsy shoved the thought aside and snorted. “They won’t let me go after this, what does it matter?”

“Well, young man”, Harry hissed back, “you and your stupid friends created this mess, it’s on you to stick it out. Don’t complain.”

“I could just hand myself over”, Eggsy said, clearly annoyed. “That would be way easier!”

“Not as long as you are in a position of power.” Harry flicked his eyes at the fake gun, “make the best out of it.”

Eggsy sighed and let himself sink back to the wall dividing the different counter sections. 

“And why would you care?”, he asked, “why don’t you just tell everyone I don’t have a real gun and you all can walk free?”

“And get you shot in the head? Or worse: incarcerated”, Harry retorted and raised a brow, “That’s certainly not what your father wanted for you.”

Eggsy deadpanned and stared at Harry with growing hate, obviously not sharing his humor. “You have no right”, he whispered.

“I have every right”, Harry said sternly. “Your father saved my life, I owe him so I owe you and if you believe it or not: I care. I said it multiple times now: I will help you to get out of here, preferably alive.”

Eggsy stared at him for another second, then turned around to the room.

“I’ll send the bald guy”, he said with a stronger voice than before. “He looks like he’s having a panic attack every second now, and the woman in red next after him.” He swallowed hard.

“Sounds good”, Harry said, “insist on what you want. And you could order some food next time, it seems like we have to stick out for longer.”

Eggsy just shot him an ungrateful look. 

Three hostages later a heavily armored police man came in - it took Eggsy half an hour to persuade them on the phone that he wouldn’t kill anyone innocent, he just wanted money and freedom bla bla bla - and slid them a basket full of the wanted food. 

“Donuts, for god’s sake”, Harry rolled his eyes when Eggsy lowered the gun again as soon as the police guy didn’t see them anymore. “Why not something even less healthy?”

“I like them, okay?”, Eggsy shrugged his shoulders and looked around the room again. Six people were left lying on the floor. 

“Anyone want donuts?”, Eggsy shouted. No answer. He looked at Harry and shrugged again before taking a big bite, and Harry couldn’t help but chuckle. 

If Harry was honest, he had a great sympathy for this young man, despite his lack of robbery-skills, and manners of course. Eggsy wasn’t cruel, that for sure, and not entirely stupid. He just lacked of ruthlessness everywhere where it mattered as a criminal. And a gentlemen. There were gentleman criminals, too, but to be honest Harry always thought they where a pain in the arse.

Too good for this world, too pure, Harry thought silently laughing to himself while taking a sugary bite of doughnut. 

“What should I order next?”, Eggsy asked after finishing, more pleased with himself than ever before. And more eager to please Harry, too, as the older man observed. Eggsy seemed more relaxed in his presence, because he promised the younger man security. Harry still had to work on fulfilling that promise, though. 

“Maybe you should call your friends.”

“What for? They left”, Eggsy pouted and tightened the grip on his plastic gun.

And I held you back, Harry thought, but he didn’t say it out loud. 

“To make sure they don’t tell the police anything about you if they get captured or asked - not yet, at least. It doesn’t matter in a few hours, but you need the time and the pressure.”

Eggsy nodded and pulled out his phone, a shabby, broken thing. 

“And I shall call my contacts”, Harry suggested. “If that’s alright?”

“I can’t keep you from doing”, Eggsy murmured, lazily waving his gun while typing a number into his phone.

Harry tapped his glasses and turned away from the young man.

“Merlin? This is Galahad, I can speak freely now.”

“You’re not out of this bank yet, you stupid fucker. Chester's been grilling us here on hot coals for a hour now.”

Harry restrained himself not to grunt. “You know I have good reasons, my friend.”

“Because Lee Unwin’s boy can’t keep it together. The boy’s a fucking mess, Harry! Have a look at his personal record, robbery isn’t the only thing he’s good at.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say he’s good at it.”

“You get the message. What are you doing at the moment?”

Harry looked down at the empty carton. “We just ‘destroyed’ a twelve-pack of donuts, as young Eggsy here tends to articulate himself.”

“And what’s your plan in this, Galahad? Play his saviour? Get him on the right track again?”

“I’m helping him to help himself, first and foremost”, Harry said calmly, knowing his friend’s sudden outbursts of annoyance all too well. “And please don’t get pissed off in case some officials are asking for my name tomorrow.”

He ended the obligatory call and turned around again to Eggsy who was listening intently to his phone. He nodded again with a small smile and pressed the red button. 

“They alright, and shut their mouths”, then he showed Harry the digital clock on the display, “And it’s almost time for the next one now.”

One doesn’t have to be punctual when dealing with the police, Harry thought. Especially not when one is the criminal.

Arms crossed against his chest, he leaned against the wall of the small cubicle they sat in and surveyed his new acquaintance. “They can wait a little longer”, he said , “Maybe you could ask for some more nutritious food the next call?”

 

Two hostages later (4 left), they sat in a circle of six, Eggsy still armed and ready to waggle his gun around if necessary, and ate Chinese Take Away. The three men and the only woman left looked at them irregularly and insecure, not sure what to think of the food they just had been handed and the strange pair their captor and what now seemed to be his co-captor made: A sharply-dressed business man with some kind of dangerous aura who was sitting perfectly calm and ate with chopsticks from his carton and the young poor lad who was likely to be some sociopath and held them all hostage for a good 4 hours now. 

“I should open a business”, Eggsy suggested to Harry. He was in a perfectly good mood now, that kind of mood when you know everything will go tits up and you just want to have a good time. “Anti-capitalist Robbery inc. We shit on your bank account. Rob banks worldwide, burn money, take from the rich and give to...ya know.”

“I wouldn’t invest in it”, Harry said ironically and slurped a noodles into his mouth!”

"There's no use, for god' sake. I give a dump about your virtual financing." 

Harry looked up to him and tilted his head while smiling doubtfully. “Think about how many people would take it personal if you developed this into a habit.”

“Certainly not the anarchists.”

Harry raised a brow at his take away and took a sip of the coke that had been delivered with it.

“Okay, that was the last”, Eggsy sighed after shushing out the woman who didn’t talk to them at all but couldn’t help to smile at some of Eggsy’s bad puns after she realized this was all some of an unfortunate accident and he wouldn’t harm her.

“Except for me.”

“You’re not an hostage, you can go now.”

Harry settled down on the ground and leaned his back against the counter. 

“How about a last smoke?”, he asked and pulled an open packet of Malboros out of the last basket. One of the hostages, more keen than the others, had asked for it to satisfy his addiction.

“Yeah, okay. Last smoke before the gallows.”

Eggsy let himself slide down at the wall behind the counter and stretched out his legs. When Harry put a cigarette between his lips, Eggsy pointed his gun at his head only to reveal that it was a lighter. 

He lighted his own and both sagged back a little more, enjoyed the nicotine rush. It was dark outside now, far after 6 this time of the year, and the blackness was only interrupted by the flashing blue lights.

“Can ya tell me something ‘bout me dad?”

Harry looked at the young man but Eggsy wouldn’t look back. He just stared into the air, enjoying his last smoke.

“Eggsy....I”, Harry started but paused. “This isn’t the right moment, is it?”

“I might not see you again for some time”, Eggsy replied, raising both his brows. “And prison really is no place for anecdotes.” He sounded miserable, all of the sudden.

They sat in silence for some more minutes before Eggsy bent his knees and buried his face between them. 

”I fucked up”, he breathed hardly, but he wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t seem like a cryer, Harry thought, quite a tough boy. “I fucked it up so bad.”

Harry rubbed his hands over his tired face. “You’re not going to prison, Eggsy. I will pull some strings, everything will be alright.” He sighed and let a heavy breathe escape. Comforting wasn’t his best skill.

Eggsy turned around to look at him with tired eyes and a deeply sad expression. The euphoria had subsided, only thing left was the knowledge that he would be captured anytime soon and pushed around again in some police station. His only security now was the man beside him, the posh guy he barely knew. 

“I’m somehow wanting you to know why I did this”, Eggsy said with a slow, uncertain voice. “’m not stupid, okay? This is fucked up, I’m hips-deep in the shit now and I knew it would come this way.”

Harry looked at the swollen lips that had been bitten on the whole day in stress. He drew another tug.

“I got a family to provide for, my lil sis is going to kindergarten next month”, Eggsy said lowly and tried his hardest not to look as exhausted as he was. He failed horrendously. “So Ryan got this crazy idea of robbing a bank, I think that’s been his plan for some time now, and I just hopped on the train. He said it would be easy peasy, maybe ten thousand, not more. We would have chared it.”

Silence fell upon them, only disrupted by the noises of their breathing. 

Finally, Harry turned around again and pointed his hands at the pendant under Eggsy’s t-shirt. “That’s what I gave you this for.”

“Me mum always said it wos only some symbol of...you know. Nothing serious. Only condolence.”

Harry sighed again. 

“And it’s just a fucking pendant with a K on it, mate. How would you think this was a real...you know..-”

“- favour? You could have just tried it, Eggsy.” Harry turned back to his cigarette. “As soon as you arrive in custody, you have one call. Don’t waste it on your mother, but instead wait a while so I can clean up behind you and then call me in...”, Harry looked at his watch, “...about 6 hours.”

Eggsy looked at him in awe but didn’t utter a word.

“And regarding the K: you read my business card. Kingsman is not a tailor shop, it’s a non-governmental secret service providing aid to whoever is in need, you could say. You father was an applicant and died before he could become an agent.”

“So you’re a freaking spy, yeah?” Eggsy’s eyes shone bright again with amazement, though his voice was flustered and croaky. Harry realized how he suddenly stood before the young man in an entirely new light, although Eggsy didn’t sound surprised enough for his taste. “A fucking gentlemen spy, yeah?”

“Yeah”, Harry imitated his accent. He couldn’t tell Eggsy now, that he had been his father’s mentor and how exactly his death had been his responsibility. Another day maybe, but right now he needed Eggsy’s trust. 

And strangely, the way the young man looked at him with growing devotion it made him warm up inside. His heart fluttered for a few, confusing seconds. 

Playfully, Harry lifted one side of his suit jacket so Eggsy could see his well-filled holsters. A bit of a show-off, aren’t we?, he said to himself, but Eggsy seemed to like what he saw. Maybe not just the holders, Harry’s mind was crossed by a thought. 

“Fine”, Harry said after letting the hem of his jacket fall again and before flicking the rest of his cigarette away, “before we dissolve this involuntary gathering...”

Harry took in Eggsy’s doubtful expression while reaching into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. “...how much money do you need?”

He was ready to scribble down any sum into his check book, but the boy vehemently shook his head.

“No, I can’t. You don't have to...”

“You were willing to rob a bank but you won't take offered money?”, Harry asked suspiciously and wrote - completely ignoring Eggsy’s shamed expression - 1000 pounds down. Eggsy Unwin. Signature. That should be enough for next month's kindergarten and rent. 

He handed it over into Eggsy’s hands. 

“Hide this in a clever spot”, he almost winked, “Remember: You will call me in six hours. I will send someone to pick you up from the police station and have him take you to the Kingsman shop in Savile Row. You don’t need to write a CV”, he said while raising to his feet, dusting off his suit and really winking at Eggsy, “we already have got all your data.”

“This is scary”, Eggsy breathed, still occasionally gazing at the paper in his hands. 

“But you understand me, do you?”

“You offer me a job?”

Harry pursed his lips and straightened his tie. “Frankly speaking, only a place under the candidates, but this isn’t an open submission really.”

A smile grew on Eggsy’s face, still somewhat restrained but nevertheless beautiful. 

“You’re the guv’”, Eggsy smirked, looking a bit relieved with the check in his left and the gun in his right hand. He could look good in a suit, Harry thought, the gun already suited him very well if one overlooked the fact that it was cheap plastic.

He threw a good look at his watch. “See you at 6 in the morning then.”

“Sounds like a date.”

Harry looked back to the young man staring blatantly at him. He definitely looked like that kind of cheeky brat that would start flirting with him at every occasion. 

“I would tell you to dress nicely, but I’m afraid they won’t lend you fresh clothes at the police station.”

Eggsy played a frown and smiled again. “Oh, you’ll like me all the same unshowered and sleepless.”

Harry’s stomach twitched strangely as he put on a small, restrained smile again and went towards the glass doors and the headlights of the police cars. He raised his hands while Eggsy hid the check and went for the telephone instead to declare his defeat, probably with a shitty pun on his lips.

Yes, Harry was definitely looking forward to that. Then he swaggered towards the police cars. 

“If you touch him, I’ll make sure your department is being closed tomorrow, you and your colleagues will never get work again and you will lose everything dear to you”, Harry said nonchalantly to the responsible officer while politely handing back his shock blanket. He smiled again, nodded and went off into he night to catch a few hours of sleep before he awaited his call in the morning.


End file.
